Associate Says He Was Fired for Refusing
to Destroy Evidence of Kiddie Porn on Client's Computer

By Robert J. Ambrogi
Legal Blog Watch
May 1, 2003

A former associate with Hinckley, Allen & Snyder in Boston claims he was fired from the firm after refusing to destroy child pornography found on a client's computer hard drive. This week, the former associate, Kevin M. Plante, won a decision from the Massachusetts Appeals Court reinstating his wrongful-termination lawsuit against the firm, after a trial court judge had dismissed his suit for the reason that it would expose client confidences.

You will not be able to read the opinion for yourself. The Appeals Court impounded the opinion and issued it with a pseudonymous caption. But David E. Frank, a reporter for Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly in Boston, obtained a copy of it and confirmed the identities of the former associate and the firm. In a story published on MLW's Web site yesterday, Frank provides details of the case.

Plante would not disclose where he now works and was reluctant to discuss the case, Frank writes, but he did provide some details. Plante does not say how the illegal images were discovered. Once they were, he tells Frank, he advised the partners that they were legally obligated to report the materials to law enforcement. He explains:

<1> If a person came to you as a lawyer and said, "Here is the illegally possessed gun that I killed so and so with," you can't just put it in your desk and call it privileged. It couldn't be clearer under federal and state law that you cannot possess those kinds of images. By doing so, the client and the firm would be guilty of possessing child pornography.

The firm sought advice from outside counsel, who concurred with Plante, he says. Even so, the partners instructed him to find a company that could permanently erase the images from the computer, he maintains. When the partners discovered in 2006 that Plante did not do as he was told, they fired him, he contends. Plante answered his termination by reporting the firm to the FBI and then, in 2007, filing this lawsuit.

In reversing the dismissal of Plante's lawsuit, the Appeals Court concluded that the suit could go forward without the need to reveal client confidences. "To the extent that the case does revolve around the details of the images, we note that to a large degree, protective orders already in place serve to safeguard the law firm's client," the court said. "No business information, trade secrets, or other information from which it could be possible to identify the client need be revealed in order to proceed with the plaintiff's claim."